Help to Save Scheme

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The Saving Gateway, which had cross-party support, is similar. This scheme is improved. The fact is that at the time the Saving Gateway was unaffordable in the context of the financial position that the Government inherited. I do not think it matters whether this scheme is as successful or not as the Saving Gateway; the point is that it is achieving a good end.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I welcome the scheme, but is it not being paid for by the very workers at whom it is aimed—those on universal credit and tax credits? The Government are cutting £1,600 a year from the universal credit payments of these very low-paid workers. Perhaps if the Government had let them keep their universal credit they could have saved on their own. In reality, is it not, as my honourable friend Owen Smith put it,

“like stealing someone’s car and offering them a lift to the bus stop”?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The difference in what the noble Baroness has said is that they would not have the 50% government bonus after two years.